952 

S995 

M3 


II 


^ 


JOHN  M.  SYNGE:  A  FEW  PERSONAL 
RECOLLECTIONS 


Five  hundred  copies  of  this 
book  have  been  printed. 
This  copy  is  No.,  ./i';>G 


•'■  •  : .':  ■•'.•.''«'•:  :     i  /JOHN  MILLINGTON  SYNGE 


JOHN  M.  SYNGE:  A  FEW 
PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS 
WITH  BIOGRAPHICAL 
NOTES  BY  JOHN  MASEFIELD 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK-MCMXV 


Copyright,  1915 
By  JOHN  MASEFIELD 


Published  July,  1916 


JOHN  M.  SYNGE:  A  FEW  PERSONAL 
RECOLLECTIONS 


330391 


JOHN  M.  SYNGE 


FIRST  met  John  M.  Synge  at  the 
room  of  a  common  friend,  up  two 
pairs  of  stairs,  in  an  old  house  in 
Bloomsbury,  on  a  Monday  night 
of  January,  1903.  When  I  entered 
the  room,  he  was  sitting  in  a 
rush-bottomed  chair,  talking  to  a  young  man 
just  down  from  Oxford.  My  host  introduced  me, 
with  the  remark  that  he  wanted  us  to  know 
each  other. 

S3mge  stood  up  to  shake  hands  with  me.  He  was 
of  the  middle  height,  about  five  feet  eight  or 
nine.  My  first  impression  of  him  was  of  a  dark, 
grave  face,  with  a  great  deal  in  it,  changing  from 
the  liveliness  of  conversation  to  a  gravity  of 
scrutiny.  After  we  had  shaken  hands,  I  passed 
to  the  other  end  of  the  room  to  greet  other 
friends.  We  did  not  speak  to  each  other  again 
that  night. 

When  I  sat  at  the  other  end  of  the  room  my 
chair  was  opposite  Synge's  chair.  Whenever  I 
raised  my  eyes  I  saw  him,  and  wondered  who 
he  could  be.  Disordered  people  look  disordered, 
unusual  people  look  unusual.  A  youth  with  long 
hair,  a  velvet  coat,  extravagant  manners,  and 
the  other  effeminacies  of  emptiness  looks  the 

[7] 


John  M.  Synge: 

charlatan  he  is.  Synge  gave  one  from  the  first 
the  impression  of  a  strange  personality.  He  was 
of  a  dark  type  of  Irishman,  though  not  black- 
haired.  Something  in  his  air  gave  one  the  fancy 
that  his  face  was  dark  from  gravity.   Gravity  N 
filled  the  face  and  haunted  it,  as  though  the  man 
behind  were  forever  listening  to  life's  case  be- 
fore passing  judgment.  It  was  "  a  dark,  grave  ^ 
face,  with  a  great  deal  in  it."  The  hair  was  worn 
neither   short   nor   long.    The    moustache   was 
rather  thick  and  heavy.  The  lower  jaw,  other- 
wise  clean-shaven,   was  made   remarkable   by 
a  tuft  of  hair,  too  small  to  be  called  a  goatee, 
upon  the  lower  lip.  The  head  was  of  a  good  size. 
There  was  nothing  niggardly,  nothing  abundant 
about  it.  The  face  was  pale,  the  cheeks  were 
rather  drawn.  In  my  memory  they  were  rather 
seamed  and  old-looking.  The  eyes  were  at  once 
smoky  and  kindling.  The  mouth,  not  well  seen^~~^ 
below  the  moustache,  had  a  great  play  of  hu-    / 
mour  on  it.  But  for  this  humorous  mouth,  the/ 
kindling  in  the  eyes,  and  something  not  robust 
in  his  build,  he  would  have  been  more  like  a 
Scotchman  than  an  Irishman. 
I  remember  wondering  if  he  were  Irish.  His 
voice,  very  guttural  and  quick,  with  a  kind  of 
lively  bitterness  in  it,  was  of  a  kind  of  Irish  voice 

[8] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

new  to  me  at  that  time.  I  had  known  a  good  many 
Irish  people ;  but  they  had  all  been  vivacious  and  \ 
picturesque,  rapid  in  intellectual  argument,  and 
vague  about  life.  There  was  nothing  vivacious, 
picturesque,  rapid  or  vague  about  Synge.  The 
rush-bottomed  chair  next  to  him  was  filled  by 
talker  after  talker,  but  Synge  was  not  talking,  he 
was  answering.  When  someone  spoke  to  him  he 
answered  with  the  grave  Irish  courtesy.  He 
offered  nothing  of  his  own.  When  the  talk  be- 
came general  he  was  silent.  Sometimes  he  went 
to  a  reddish  earthenware  pot  upon  the  table,  took 
out  a  cigarette  and  lit  it  at  a  candle.  Then  he 
sat  smoking,  pushed  back  a  little  from  the  circle, 
gravely  watching.  Sometimes  I  heard  his  deep, 
grave  voice  assenting  "  Ye-es,  ye-es,"  with  med- 
itative boredom.  Sometimes  his  little  finger 
flicked  off  the  ash  on  to  the  floor.  His  manner  was 
that  of  a  man  too  much  interested  in  the  life  about 
him  to  wish  to  be  more  than  a  spectator.  His  in- 
terest was  in  life,  not  in  ideas.  He  was  new  to  / 
that  particular  kind  of  life.  Afterwards,  when  I 
had  come  to  know  him,  I  heard  him  sum  up  every 
person  there  with  extraordinary  point  and  sparkle. 
Often  since  then,  eager  to  hear  more  of  my  friend, 
I  have  asked  men  who  met  him  casually  for  a  re- 
port of  him.  So  often  they  have  said,  "  He  was 

[9] 


John  M.  Synge : 

looker-on  at  life.  He  came  in  and  sat  down  and 
looked  on.  He  gave  nothing  in  return.  He  never 
talked,  he  only  listened.  I  never  got  much  out  of 
ihim.  I  never  got  to  the  real  Synge.  I  was  never 
{conscious  of  what  he  felt.  Sometimes  I  felt  that 
there  was  nothing  in  him.  I  never  knew  him  re- 
spond. I  never  knew  him  do  or  say  anything  to 
suggest  what  he  was  in  himself."  When  I  hear 
these  phrases,  I  know  that  those  who  utter  them 
really  met  Synge.  His  place  was  outside  the  circle, 
gravely  watching,  gravely  summing  up,  with  a 
brilliant  malice,  the  fools  and  wise  ones  inside. 
A  week,  or  perhaps  a  fortnight,  later,  I  met  him 
again  at  the  same  place,  among  the  same  people. 
He  was  talking  brightly  and  charmingly  to  a 
-AH  woman.  Men  usually  talk  their  best  to  women. 
When  I  turn  over  my  memories  of  him,  it  seems 
that  his  grave  courtesy  was  only  gay  when  he 
was  talking  to  women.  His  talk  to  women  had  a 
lightness  and  charm.  It  was  sympathetic;  never 
self-assertive,  as  the  hard,  brilliant  Irish  intellect 
so  often  is.  He  liked  people  to  talk  to  him.  He 
liked  to  know  the  colours  of  people's  minds.  He 
liked  to  be  amused.  His  merriest  talk  was  like 
playing  catch  with  an  apple  of  banter,  which  one 
afterwards  ate  and  forgot. 

He  never  tried  to  be  brilliant.  I  never  heard  him 

[10] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

say  a  brilliant  thing.  He  said  shrewd  things.  I  do 
not  know  what  he  could  have  done  if  stirred  to 
talk.  Few  people  bom  out  of  old,  sunny  countries 
talk  well.  I  never  heard  him  engaged  with  a  bril- 
liant talker,  either  man  or  woman.  He  told  me 
that  once,  in  Paris,  he  had  gone  to  hear  a  brilliant 
talker — a  French  poet,  now  dead.  It  was  like  him 
that  he  did  not  speak  to  the  talker.  "  We  sat  round 
on  chairs  and  the  great  man  talked." 
During  the  evening,  I  spoke  a  few  words  to  Synge 
about  some  Irish  matter.  We  pushed  back  our 
chairs  out  of  the  circle  and  discussed  it.  I  did  not 
know  at  that  time  that  he  was  a  writer.  I  knew  by 
name  most  of  the  writers  in  the  Irish  movement. 
Synge  was  not  one  of  the  names.  I  thought  that  he  \/ 
must  be  at  work  on  the  political  side.  I  wronged 
him  in  this.  He  never  played  any  part  in  politics : 
politics  did  not  interest  him.  He  was  the  only 
Irishman  I  have  ever  met  who  cared  nothing  for 
either  the  political  or  the  religious  issue.  He  had  a 
prejudice  against  one  Orange  district,  because  the 
people  in  it  were  dour.  He  had  a  prejudice 
against  one  Roman  Catholic  district,  because  the 
people  in  it  were  rude.  Otherwise  his  mind  was 
imtroubled.  Life  was  what  interested  him.  He 
would  have  watched  a  political  or  religious  riot 
with  gravity,  with  pleasure  in  the  spectacle,  and 

[11] 


John  M.  Synge: 

J  malice  for  the  folly.  He  would  have  taken  no  side, 
''^-— and  felt  no  emotion,  except  a  sort  of  pity  when  the 
losers  could  go  on  no  longer.  The  question  was 
nothing  to  him.  All  that  he  asked  for  was  to  hear 
what  it  made  people  say  and  to  see  what  it  made 
people  do. 

Towards  one  in  the  morning,  our  host  asked 
Synge  and  me  to  sup  with  him.  We  foraged  in 
the  pantry,  and  found  some  eggs,  but  nothing  in 
which  to  cook  them.  Our  host  said  that  he  would 
try  a  new  trick,  of  boiling  eggs  in  a  paper  box.  We 
were  scornful  about  it,  thinking  it  impossible.  He 
brought  out  paper,  made  a  box  (with  some  diffi- 
culty), filled  it  with  water,  and  boiled  an  egg  in  it. 
Synge  watched  the  task  with  the  most  keen  in- 
terest. "  You've  done  it,"  he  said.  "  I  never 
thought  you  would."  Afterwards  he  examined  the 
paper  box.  I  suppose  he  planned  to  make  one  in 
Aran  in  the  summer.  While  we  supped,  our  host 
chaffed  us  both  for  choosing  to  eat  cold  meats 
when  we  might  have  had  nice  hot  eggs.  It  was  at 
this  supper  that  I  first  came  to  know  the  man. 
When  we  got  into  the  street,  we  found  that  we 
lodged  within  a  few  minutes'  walk  of  each  other. 
We  walked  together  to  our  lodgings.  He  said  that 
he  had  been  for  a  time  in  Aran,  that  he  had  taken 
some  photographs  there,  and  that  he  would  be 

[12] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

pleased  to  show  them  to  me,  if  I  would  call  upon 
him  later  in  the  morning.  He  said  that  he  had  just 
come  to  London  from  Paris,  and  that  he  found 
Bloomsbury  strange  after  the  Quartier  Latin.  He 
was  puzzled  by  the  talk  of  the  clever  young  men 
from  Oxford.  "  That's  a  queer  way  to  talk.  They 
all  talk  like  that.  I  wonder  what  makes  them  talk 
like  that?  I  suppose  they're  always  stewing  over 
dead  things." 

Synge  lodged  in  a  front  room  on  the  second  floor 
of  No.  4,  Handel  Street,  Bloomsbury.  It  was  a 
quiet  house  in  a  quiet,  out-of-the-way  street.  His 
room  there  was  always  very  clean  and  tidy.  The 
people  made  him  very  comfortable.  Afterwards, 
in  1907,  during  his  last  visit  to  London,  he  lodged 
there  again,  in  the  same  room.  I  called  upon  him 
there  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  on  which  I  last 
saw  him. 

When  I  first  called  upon  him,  I  found  him  at  his 
type-writer,  hard  at  work.  He  was  making  a  fair 
copy  of  one  of  his  two  early  one-act  plays,  then 
just  finished.  His  type-writer  was  a  small  portable 
machine  of  the  Blick  variety.  He  was  the  only 
writer  I  have  ever  known  who  composed  direct 
upon  a  type-writing  machine.  I  have  often  seen 
him  at  work  upon  it.  Sometimes,  when  I  called  to 
ask  him  to  come  for  a  walk,  he  had  matter  to 

[13] 


John  M.  Synge : 

finish  off  before  we  could  start.  He  worked  rather 
slowly  and  very  carefully,  sitting  very  upright.  He 
composed  slowly.  He  wrote  and  re-wrote  his  plays 
many  times.  I  remember  that  on  this  first  occasion 
the  table  had  a  pile  of  type-written  drafts  upon  it, 
as  well  as  a  few  books,  one  or  two  of  them  by  M. 
Pierre  Loti.  He  thought  M.  Loti  the  best  living 
writer  of  prose.  There  are  marks  of  M.  Loti's  in- 
fluence in  the  Aran  book.  Much  of  the  Aran 
manuscript  was  on  the  table  at  that  time.  Synge 
asked  me  to  wait  for  a  few  minutes  while  he 
finished  the  draft  at  which  he  was  working.  He 
handed  me  a  black  tobacco-pouch  and  a  packet  of 
cigarette-papers.  While  I  rolled  a  cigarette  he 
searched  for  his  photographs  and  at  last  handed 
them  to  me.  They  were  quarter-plate  prints  in  a 
thick  bundle.  There  must  have  been  fifty  of  them. 
They  were  all  of  the  daily  life  of  Aran;  women 
carrying  kelp,  men  in  hookers,  old  people  at  their 
doors,  a  crowd  at  the  landing-place,  men  loading 
horses,  people  of  vivid  character,  pigs  and  chil- 
dren playing  together,  etc.  As  I  looked  at  them  he 
explained  them  or  commented  on  them  in  a  way 
which  made  all  sharp  and  bright.  His  talk  was 
best  when  it  was  about  life  or  the  ways  of  life.  His 
mind  was  too  busy  with  the  life  to  be  busy  with 
the  affairs  or  the  criticism  of  life.  His  talk  was  all 

[14] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

about  men  and  women  and  what  they  did  and 
what  they  said  when  life  excited  them.  His  mind 
was  perhaps  a  little  like  Shakespeare's.  We  do  not 
know  what  Shakespeare  thought:  I  do  not  know 
what  Synge  thought.  I  don't  believe  anybody 
knew,  or  thinks  he  knows. 

"  There  was  something  very  nice  about  Synge." 
The  friend  who  said  this  to  me,  added  that 
"  though  the  plays  are  cynical,  he  was  not  cynical 
in  himself."  I  do  not  feel  that  the  plays  are  cyn- 
ical. They  seem  heartless  at  first  sight.  The  abun- 
dant malicious  zest  in  them  gives  them  an  air  of 
cruelty.  But  in  the  plays,  Synge  did  with  his  per- 
sonality as  he  did  in  daily  life.  He  buried  his 
meaning  deep.  He  covered  his  tragedy  with 
mockeries. 

More  than  a  year  ago  a  friend  asked  me  what  sort 
of  man  Synge  was.  I  answered,  "  a  perfect  com- 
panion." The  other  day  I  saw  that  another  friend, 
who  knew  him  better  than  I,  had  described  him 
as  "  the  best  companion."  After  that  first  day, 
when  I  called  upon  him  at  his  room,  we  met  fre- 
quently. We  walked  long  miles  together,  generally 
from  Bloomsbury  to  the  river,  along  the  river  to 
Vauxhall,  and  back  by  Westminster  to  Soho.  We 
sometimes  dined  together  at  a  little  French  res- 
taurant, called  the  Restaurant  des  Gourmets.  The 

[15  1 


John  M.  Synge : 

house  still  stands;  but  it  has  now  grown  to  five 
times  the  size.  The  place  where  Synge  and  I 
used  to  sit  has  now  been  improved  away.  We 
spent  happy  hours  there,  talking,  rolling  cig- 
arettes, and  watching  the  life.  "  Those  were  great 
days,"  he  used  to  say.  He  was  the  best  compan- 
ion for  that  kind  of  day. 

Our  talk  was  always  about  life.  When  we  talked 
about  writers  (modern  French  and  ancient  Eng- 
lish writers)  it  was  not  about  their  writings  that 
we  talked,  but  about  the  something  kindling  in 
them,  which  never  got  expressed.  His  theory  of 
writing  was  this: — "  No  good  writer  can  ever  be 
translated."  He  used  to  quote  triumphantly  from 
Shakespeare's  130th  Sonnet. 

"  As  any  she  belied  with  false  compare." 

"  How  would  you  put  that  into  French?  "  he 

asked. 

He  never  talked  about  himself.  He  often  talked 

of  his  affairs,  his  money,  his  little  room  in  Paris, 

his  meetings  with  odd  characters,  etc.,  but  never 

of  himself.  He  had  wandered  over  a  lot  of  Europe. 

He  was  silent  about  all  that. 

Very  rarely,  and  then  by  chance,  when  telling  of 

the  life  in  Aran,  or  of  some  strange  man  in  the 

f  16] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

train  or  in  the  steamer,  he  revealed  little  things 
about  himself: — 

"  They  asked  me  to  fiddle  to  them,  so  that  they 
might  dance." 
"  Do  you  play,  then?  " 

"  I  fiddle  a  little.  I  try  to  learn  something  different 
for  them  every  time.  The  last  time  I  learned  to  do 
conjuring  tricks.  They'd  get  tired  of  me  if  I  didn't 
bring  something  new.  I'm  thinking  of  learning  the 
penny  whistle  before  I  go  again." 
I  never  heard  him  mention  his  early  life  nor  what 
he  endured  in  his  struggles  to  find  a  form.  I  be- 
lieve he  never  spoke  about  his  writings,  except  to 
say  that  he  wrote  them  slowly,  many  times  over. 
His  talk  was  always  about  vivid,  picturesque, 
wild  life.  He  took  greater  joy  in  what  some  frantic 
soul  from  Joyce's  country  said  when  the  police- 
man hit  him  than  in  anything  of  his  own.  He 
found  no  vivid  life  in  England.  He  disliked  Eng- 
land. I  think  he  only  knew  London.  Afterwards  he 
stayed  for  a  couple  of  weeks  in  Devonshire.  Lon- 
don is  a  place  where  money  can  be  made  and 
spent.  Devonshire  is  a  place  where  elderly  ladies 
invite  retired  naval  officers  to  tea.  England  lies 
further  to  the  north.  He  was  never  in  any  part  of 
England  where  the  country  life  is  vigorous  and 
picturesque.  He  believed  England  to  be  all  sub- 

[17] 


John  M.  Synge: 

urb,  like  the  "  six  countries  overhung  with 
smoke."  Soon  after  our  first  meeting  I  was  pres- 
ent at  his  first  success.  His  two  early  plays, 
"  Riders  to  the  Sea  "  and  "  The  Shadow  of  the 
Glen,"  were  read  aloud  to  about  a  dozen  friends 
at  the  rooms  of  one  who  was  always  most  gen- 
erously helpful  to  writers  not  yet  sure  of  their 
road.  A  lady  read  the  plays  very  beautifully.  After- 
wards we  all  applauded.  Synge  learned  his  metier 
that  night.  Until  then,  all  his  work  had  been  ten- 
tative and  in  the  air.  After  that,  he  went  forward, 
knowing  what  he  could  do. 

For  two  or  three  months  I  met  Synge  almost  daily. 
Presently  he  went  back  to  Ireland  (I  believe  to 
Aran)  and  I  to  "  loathed  Devonshire."  I  met  him 
again,  later  in  the  year.  During  the  next  few 
years,  though  he  was  not  often  in  town,  I  met  him 
fairly  often  whenever  the  Irish  players  came  to 
London.  Once  I  met  him  for  a  few  days  together 
in  Dublin.  He  was  to  have  stayed  with  me  both 
in  London  and  in  Ireland;  but  on  both  occasions 
his  health  gave  way,  and  the  visit  was  never  paid. 
I  remember  sitting  up  talking  with  him  through 
the  whole  of  one  winter  night  (in  1904).  Later, 
when  the  Rokeby  Velasquez  was  being  talked  of, 
I  went  with  him  to  see  the  picture.  We  agreed 
that  it  was  the  kind  of  picture  people  paint  when 

[18  1 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

mind  is  beginning  to  get  languid.  After  we  had 
seen  the  picture  I  walked  with  him  to  his  hotel 
(the  Kenilworth  Hotel),  talking  about  Irish  art, 
which  he  thought  was  the  kind  of  art  people  make 
when  mind  has  been  languid  for  a  long  time.  I 
never  saw  him  angry.  I  never  saw  him  vexed.  I 
never  heard  him  utter  a  hasty  or  an  unkind  word. 
I  saw  him  visibly  moved  once  to  sadness,  when 
some  one  told  him  how  tourists  had  spoiled  the 
country  people  in  a  part  of  Ireland.  The  Irish 
country  people  are  simple  and  charming.  Tourists 
make  them  servile,  insolent,  and  base.  "  The 
Irish  are  easily  corrupted,"  he  said,  "  because 
they  are  so  simple.  When  they're  corrupted, 
they're  hard,  they're  rude,  they're  everything 
that's  bad.  But  they're  only  that  where  the  low- 
class  tourists  go,  from  America,  and  Glasgow,  and 
Liverpool  and  these  places."  He  seldom  praised 
people,  either  for  their  work  or  for  their  personal- 
ity. When  he  spoke  of  acquaintances  he  generally 
quoted  a  third  person.  When  he  uttered  a  per- 
sonal judgment  it  was  always  short,  like  "  He's  a 
great  fellow,"  or  "  He's  a  grand  fellow,"  or  "  No- 
body in  Ireland  understands  how  big  he  is." 
On  one  occasion  (I  think  in  1906)  we  lunched  to- 
gether (at  the  Vienna  Cafe.)  He  told  me  with  huge 
delight  about  his  adventures  in  the  wilds.  He  had 

[19] 


John  M.  Synge : 

lodged  in  a  cabin  far  from  the  common  roads. 
There  was  no  basin  in  his  bed-room.  He  asked 
for  one,  so  that  he  might  wash.  The  people 
brought  him  a  wooden  box,  worn  smooth  with 
much  use.  In  the  morning  he  was  roused  by  his 
host  with  the  cry,  "  Have  you  washed  yourself 
yet?  Herself  is  wanting  the  box  to  make  up  the 
bread  in." 

I  remember  asking  him  what  sensations  an  au- 
thor had  when  his  play  was  being  performed  for 
the  first  time.  "  I  sit  still  in  my  box,"  he  said,  "  and 
curse  the  actors."  He  was  in  a  very  gay  mood 
that  afternoon,  though  his  health  was  fast  failing. 
He  spoke  with  his  usual  merry  malice  about  his 
throat.  With  the  trouble  in  his  throat  he  could  not 
tell  when  he  would  be  in  England  again.  He  was 
only  in  England  once  more.  That  was  in  late  May 
or  early  June,  1907,  when  the  Irish  players  gave 
a  few  performances  at  the  Kingsway  Theatre.  I 
met  him  in  the  foyer  of  the  theatre  just  before 
the  first  London  performance  of  "  The  Playboy  of 
the  Western  World."  I  had  some  talk  with  him 
then.  During  the  performance  I  saw  him  in  his 
box,  "  sitting  still,"  as  he  said,  watching  with  the 
singular  grave  intensity  with  which  he  watched 
life.  It  struck  me  then  that  he  was  the  only  person 
there  sufficiently  simple  to  be  really  interested  in 

[20  1 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

living  people ;  and  that  it  was  this  simplicity  which 
gave  him  his  charm.  He  found  the  life  in  a  man 
very  well  worth  wonder,  even  though  the  man 
were  a  fool,  or  a  knave,  or  just  down  from  Oxford. 
At  the  end  of  the  play  I  saw  him  standing  in  his 
box,  gravely  watching  the  actors  as  the  curtain 
rose  and  again  rose  during  the  applause.  Pres- 
ently he  turned  away  to  speak  to  the  lady  who  had 
read  his  plays  on  the  night  of  his  first  success.  The 
play  was  loudly  applauded.  Some  people  behind 
me — a  youth  and  a  girl — began  to  hiss.  I  remem- 
ber thinking  that  they  resembled  the  bird  they 
imitated.  I  only  saw  Synge  on  two  other  occasions. 
I  met  him  at  a  dinner  party,  but  had  no  talk  with 
him,  and  I  called  upon  him  at  his  old  lodgings  in 
Handel  Street.  He  said: — 
*'  Doesn't  it  seem  queer  to  you  to  be  coming  back 
here?  " 

"  It  seems   only  the   other   day  that  we  were 
here." 

"  Those  were  great  days." 
"  I  wish  we  could  have  them  again." 
"  Ah,"  he  said,  laughing  his  hard  laugh,  half  a 
cough, 

"  Nature  brings  not  back  the  mastodon. 
Nor  we  those  times." 

[211 


John  M.  Synge: 

Presently  he  told  me  that  he  had  been  writing 
poetry.  He  handed  me  a  type-written  copy  of  a 
ballad,  and  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  it.  I  told 
him  that  I  felt  the  want  of  an  explanatory  stanza 
near  the  beginning.  "  Yes,"  he  said.  "  But  I  can't 
take  your  advice,  because  then  it  would  not  be 
quite  my  own."  He  told  me  the  wild  picturesque 
story  (of  a  murder  in  Connaught)  which  had  in- 
spired the  ballad.  His  relish  of  the  savagery  made 
me  feel  that  he  was  a  dying  man  clutching  at  life, 
and  clutching  most  wildly  at  violent  life,  as  the 
sick  man  does.  We  went  out  shortly  afterwards, 
and  got  into  a  cab,  and  drove  to  the  Gourmets, 
and  ate  our  last  meal  together.  He  was  going  to 
the  theatre  after  dinner;  I  had  to  go  out  of  town. 
After  dinner  we  got  into  another  cab.  He  said  he 
would  give  me  a  lift  towards  my  station.  We  drove 
together  along  the  Strand,  talking  of  the  great 
times  we  would  have  and  of  the  jolly  times  we  had 
had.  None  of  our  many  talks  together  was  happier 
than  the  last.  I  felt  in  my  heart  as  we  drove  that  I 
should  never  see  him  again.  Our  last  talk  to- 
gether was  to  be  a  happy  one. 
He  was  later  than  he  thought.  He  could  not  come 
all  the  way  to  my  station.  He  had  to  turn  off  to  his 
theatre. 

At  the  top  of  Fleet  Street  hill  we  shook  hands  and 

[22] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

said  "So  long"  to  each  other.  The  cab  drew 
up  just  outside  the  office  of  a  sporting  news- 
paper. I  got  out,  and  raised  my  hand  to  him.  He 
raised  his  in  his  grave  way.  The  cab  swung 
round  and  set  off  westwards,  and  that  was  the 
end. 

When  I  heard  of  his  death  I  felt  that  his  interest 
in  life  would  soon  get  itself  into  another  body,  and 
come  here  again  to  look  on  and  listen.  When  a 
life  ends,  it  is  a  sign  that  Nature's  purpose  in  that 
life  is  over.  When  a  personality  has  passed  from  us 
it  is  a  sign  that  life  has  no  further  need  of  it.  What 
that  personality  did  may  matter.  What  that  per- 
sonality was  does  not  matter.  Man's  task  is  to 
leave  the  dead  alone.  Life  would  be  finer  if  we  did 
not  drag  that  caddisworm's  house  of  the  past  be- 
hind us. 

I  have  not  set  down  all  my  memories  of  him. 
Much  of  what  he  told  and  said  to  me  was  told  and 
said  in  the  confidence  of  friendship.  I  have  set 
down  only  a  few  odd  fragments  to  show  those  who 
care  to  know  what  sort  of  a  man  he  was.  Lies  and 
lives  will  be  written  of  him;  plenty  of  both. 
Enough  should  be  said  to  defeat  the  malice  and 
stupidity  of  detractors.  Those  who  want  to  know 
what  he  was  in  himself  should  read  the  poems.)^ 
The  poems  are  the  man  speaking.  They  are  so 

[23] 


John  M.  Synge: 

like  him  that  to  read  them  is  to  hear  him.  The 
couplet — 

"  But  they  are  rotten  (I  ask  their  pardon,) 
And  we've  the  sun  on  rock  and  garden." 

gives  me,  whenever  I  read  it,  the  feeling  that  he  is 
in  the  room,  looking  up  with  his  hard,  quick  gut- 
tural laugh  and  kindling  eyes,  from  the  rolling  of 
a  cigarette.  The  issue  of  "  Samhain  "  for  Decem- 
ber, 1904,  contains  a  portrait  of  him  by  Mr.  J.  B. 
Yeats.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  there  can  be 
any  portrait  more  like  him. 


I  wrote  down  these  memories  in  January  and 
February,  1911,  two  years  after  Synge's  death, 
and  three  and  a  half  years  after  I  had  parted  from 
him.  They  were  printed  in  the  "  Contemporary 
Review  "  for  April,  1911,  and  are  reprinted  here 
through  the  kindness  of  the  Editor  and  Propri- 
etors, whom  I  wish  to  thank.  Four  years  have 
passed  since  I  wrote  this  account,  and  in  reading 
it  over  today  one  or  two  little  things,  as  the  use  of 
particular  words  in  what  I  quote  from  him,  etc., 
have  made  me  pause,  as  possibly  inexact.  I  have 
not  altered  these  things,  because,  when  I  wrote 

[24] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

this  account,  my  memory  of  the  events  and  words 
was  sharper  than  it  is  today.  Memory  is  a  bad 
witness,  and  inexact  in  very  little  things,  such  as 
the  precise  words  used  in  talk  some  years  before. 
The  reader  must  however  believe  that  the  words 
quoted,  if  not  the  very  words  used  by  Synge,  are 
as  near  to  the  very  words  as  my  memory  can 
make  them. 


I  have  been  asked  to  add  to  these  memories  a  few 
notes,  and  the  chief  dates  in  Synge's  life,  as  far 
as  we  know  them.  His  life,  like  that  of  any  other 
artist,  was  dated  not  by  events  but  by  sensations. 
I  know  no  more  of  his  significant  days  than  the 
rest  of  the  world,  but  the  known  biographical 
facts  are  these. 

He  was  bom  on  16th  April,  1871,  at  Newtown 
Little,  near  Dublin.  He  was  the  youngest  son  and 
eighth  child  of  John  Hatch  Synge,  barrister,  and 
of  Kathleen,  his  wife  (born  Traill).  His  father 
died  in  1872.  His  mother  in  1908.  He  went  to 
private  schools  in  Dublin  and  in  Bray,  but  being 
seldom  well,  left  school  when  about  fourteen  and 
then  studied  with  a  tutor;  was  fond  of  wandering 
alone  in  the  country,  noticing  birds  and  wild  life, 
and  later  took  up  music,  piano,  flute  and  violin. 

[25] 


John  M.  Synge : 

All  through  his  youth,  he  passed  his  summer  hol- 
idays in  Annamoe,  Co.  Wicklow,  a  strange  place, 
which  influenced  him. 

He  entered  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  on  June  18, 
1888,  won  prizes  in  Hebrew  and  Irish  in  Trinity 
Term,  1892,  and  took  his  B.  A.  degree  (second 
class)  in  December,  1892.  While  at  Trinity  he 
studied  music  at  the  Royal  Irish  Academy  of 
Music,  where  he  won  a  scholarship  in  Harmony 
and  Counterpoint. 

He  left  College  undecided  about  a  career,  but 
was  inclined  to  make  music  his  profession.  He 
went  to  Germany  (Coblentz  and  Wiirtzburg)  to 
study  music ;  but  in  1894,  owing  to  a  disappointed 
love,  he  gave  up  this,  and  went  to  Paris,  with 
some  thought  of  becoming  a  writer.  He  was  much 
in  France  for  the  next  few  years  writing  con- 
stantly to  little  purpose;  he  went  to  Italy  in  1896, 
and  in  May  1898  made  his  first  visit  to  the  Aran 
Islands.  During  this  visit  he  began  the  first  drafts 
.  of  the  studies  which  afterwards  grew  to  be  his 
1  book,  "  The  Aran  Islands."  His  writings,  up  to 
this  time,  had  been  tentative  and  imitative,  being 
mainly  reflections  from  (and  upon)  what  had 
most  struck  him  in  his  reading.  He  had  read  con- 
siderably in  some  six  languages  (Hebrew,  Irish, 
German,  Italian,  French  and  English) ,  and  widely 

[26] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

in  at  least  four  of  them,  besides  his  scholarship  in 
the  universal  language  of  music.  Among  his  early 
plans  for  books  were  schemes  for  a  translation 
from  some  of  the  prose  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
(which  he  abandoned,  because  an  English  trans- 
lation was  published  at  the  time),  and  for  a  critical 
study  of  Racine,  whose  pure  and  noble  art  always 
meant  much  to  him.  Some  critical  and  other 
writings  of  this  period  exist  in  manuscript.  They 
are  said  to  be  carefully  written,  but  wanting  in 
inner  impulse. 

Throughout  this  period  if  not  throughout  his  life 
he  lived  with  the  utmost  ascetic  frugality,  border- 
ing always,  or  touching,  on  poverty.  He  used  to 
say  that  his  income  was  "  forty  pounds  a  year  and 
a  new  suit  of  clothes,  when  my  old  ones  get  too 
shabby."  He  had  no  expensive  habits,  he  was 
never  self-indulgent,  he  had  no  wish  to  entertain 
nor  to  give  away,  no  desire  to  make  nor  to  own 
money,  no  taste  for  collection  nor  zest  for  spend- 
ing. He  eschewed  all  things  that  threatened  his 
complete  frugal  independence  and  thereby  the 
integrity  of  his  mind. 

The  superficial  man,  not  seeing  this  last  point, 
sometimes  felt  that  he  "  did  not  know  how  to 
abound." 


27 


John  M.  Synge : 

When  in  Paris  in  1899,  he  met  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats 
who,  having  seen  his  work  suggested  that  he 
would  do  well  to  give  up  writing  criticism,  and  go 
again  to  the  Aran  Islands  to  study  the  life  there, 
and  fill  his  mind  with  real  and  new  images,  so 
that,  if  he  wrote  later,  his  writing  might  be  lively 
and  fresh  and  his  subject  a  new  discovery.  He  did 
as  Mr.  Yeats  suggested  and  went  back  to  the 
Aran  Islands  and  passed  some  weeks  in  Inish- 
maan.  In  all,  he  made  five  or  six  visits  to  the  Aran 
Islands,  these  two  of  1898  and  1899,  and  certainly 
three  more  in  the  autumns  of  1900,  1901,  1902. 
The  Islanders  liked  him  but  were  a  little  puzzled 
by  him.  He  was  an  unassertive,  unassuming  man, 
with  a  genius  for  being  inconspicuous.  He  has 
told  us  that  his  usual  method  in  a  poor  man's 
cabin  was  to  make  them  forget  that  he  was  there, 
but  in  Aran  on  these  visits  he  always  tried  to  add 
to  the  fun  and  to  his  personal  prestige,  with  con- 
juring tricks,  fiddling,  piping,  taking  photographs, 
etc.  Some  of  the  Islanders  were  much  attached  to 
him.  I  suppose  that  their  main  impression  was 
that  he  was  a  linguist  who  had  committed  a  crime 
somewhere  and  had  come  to  hide. 
His  next  three  or  four  years,  1899-1902  were 
passed  between  Paris  and  Ireland;  Paris  in  the 
winter  and  spring  and  Ireland  in  the  other  sea- 

[28] 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

sons.  He  was  at  work  on  "  The  Aran  Islands," 
and  on  his  three  early  one  act  plays,  "  The 
Tinker's  Wedding,"  "Riders  to  the  Sea,"  and  "The 
Shadow  of  the  Glen."  He  came  to  London  in  the 
winter  of  1902-3,  where  I  saw  him  as  I  have  de- 
scribed. London  did  not  suit  him  and  he  did  not 
stay  long.  He  gave  up  his  room  in  Paris  at  this 
time,  with  some  searching  of  the  heart;  for  at 
thirty  one  clings  to  youth.  After  this,  he  was 
mostly  in  Ireland,  in  the  wilder  West  and  else- 
where; writing  and  perfecting.  At  the  end  of  1904 
he  was  in  Dublin,  for  the  opening  of  the  Abbey 
Theatre  of  which  he  was  one  of  the  advisers.  In 
June,  1905,  he  went  through  the  Congested  Dis- 
tricts of  Connemara,  with  Mr.  Jack  B.  Yeats. 
After  this  expedition,  which  lasted  a  month,  he 
was  generally  in  or  near  Dublin,  in  Kingstown  and 
elsewhere,  though  he  made  summer  excursions  to 
Dingle,  the  Blasket  Islands,  Kerry,  etc.  About 
once  a  year,  when  the  Abbey  Theatre  Company 
was  touring  in  England,  he  came  with  it  if  his 
health  allowed,  to  watch  the  performances  in  Lon- 
don, Manchester  or  Edinburgh,  wherever  they 
might  be.  His  life  was  always  mainly  within  him- 
self ;  the  record  of  these  years  is  very  meagre,  all 
that  can  be  said  of  them  is  that  he  passed  them 
mostly  in  Ireland,  writing  and  re-writing,  in  fail- 

[29] 


John  M.  Synge : 

ing  health  and  with  increasing  purpose.  His  gen- 
eral health  was  never  robust,  and  for  at  least  the 
last  six  years  of  his  life  his  throat  troubled  him. 
He  used  to  speak  of  the  trouble  as  "  his  glands;  " 
I  cannot  learn  its  exact  nature;  but  I  have  been 
told  that  it  was  "  cancer  "  or  "  some  form  of  can- 
cer," which  caused  him  *'  not  very  great  pain," 
but  which  "  would  have  been  excessively  painful 
had  he  lived  a  little  longer."  Doctors  may  be  able 
to  conclude  from  these  vague  statements  what  it 
was.  He  was  operated  upon  in  May,  1908,  but 
the  growth  could  not  be  removed,  and  from  that 
time  on  he  was  under  sentence  of  death.  He 
passed  his  last  few  months  of  life  trying  to  finish 
his  play  of  "  Deirdre  "  and  writing  some  of  his 
few  poems.  He  died  in  a  private  nursing  home  in 
Dublin  on  the  24th  March,  1909,  and  was  buried 
two  days  later  in  a  family  vault  in  the  Protestant 
graveyard  of  Mount  Jerome,  Harold's  Cross, 
Dublin.  He  had  been  betrothed,  but  not  married. 

One  thing  more  needs  to  be  said.  People  have 
stated  that  Synge's  masters  in  art  were  the 
writers  of  the  French  Decadent  school  of  the 
eighteen  nineties,  Verlaine,  Mallarme,  J.  K. 
Huysmans,  etc.  Synge  had  read  these  writers 
(who  has  not?)  I  often  talked  of  them  with  him. 

[30  1 


A  Few  Personal  Recollections 

So  far  as  I  know,  they  were  the  only  writers  for 
whom  he  expressed  dislike.  As  a  craftsman  he 
respected  their  skill,  as  an  artist  he  disliked  their 
vision.  The  dislike  he  plainly  stated  in  a  review  of 
Huysmans'  "  La  Cathedrale  "  ("  The  Speaker," 
April,  1903)  and  in  an  allusion  to  the  same  au- 
thor's "  A  Rebours,"  in  one  of  his  Prefaces.  I  do 
not  know  who  his  masters  in  art  may  have  been, 
that  is  one  of  the  personal  things  he  would  not  will- 
ingly have  told;  but  from  what  I  can  remember,  I 
should  say  that  his  favourite  author,  during  the 
greater  part  of  his  life,  was  Racine. 


31 


PORTRAITS 

Several  portraits  of  Synge  exist.  Besides  a  few 
drawings  of  him  which  are  still  in  private  hands, 
there  are  these,  which  have  been  made  public. 

An  oil  painting  by  Mr.  J.  B.  Yeats.  R.  H.  A.  (Mu- 
nicipal Gallery,  Dublin.) 

A  Drawing  by  Mr.  J.  B.  Yeats.  R.  H.  A.  ("  Sam- 
hain."  December,  1904.) 

A  Drawing  by  Mr.  J.  B.  Yeats.  R.  H.  A.  (Frontis- 
piece to  "  Playboy.") 

Frontispieces  to  Vols.  I.  III.  and  IV.  of  "  The 
Works."  (One  of  these  is  a  drawing  by  Mr.  James 
Paterson,  the  others  are  photographs.) 

Two  small  but  characteristic  amateur  photo- 
graphs reproduced  in  M.  Bourgeois's  book. 

Very  few  people  can  read  a  dead  man's  character 
from  a  portrait.  Life  is  our  concern;  it  was  very 
specially  Synge's  concern.  Doubtless  he  would 
prefer  us  not  to  bother  about  how  he  looked,  but 
to  think  of  him  as  one  who 

"  Held  Time's  fickle  glass  his  fickle  hour  " 

and  then  was  put  back  into  the  earth  with  the 
kings  and  tinkers  who  made  such  a  pageant  in 
his  brain.  For  the  rest,  he  would  say,  with  Shake- 
speare, 

"  My  spirit  is  thine,  the  better  part  of  me." 

[32] 


A  LIST  OF  HIS  PLAYS,  IN  CHRONOLOGICAL 
ORDER  WITH  THE  DATES  OF  THEIR 
FIRST  PERFORMANCES 

The  Shadow  of  the  Glen.  Written  1902-3.  Per- 
formed 8th  October  1903. 

Riders  to  the  Sea.  Written  1902-3.  Performed 
25th  February  1904. 

The  Well  of  the  Saints.  Written  1903-4.  Per- 
formed 4th  February  1905. 

The  Playboy  of  the  Western  World.   Written 
1905-6.  Performed  26th  January  1907. 

The  Tinker's  Wedding.  Written  1902-1907.  Per- 
formed 11th  November  1909. 

Deirdre  of  the  Sorrows  (unfinished),  1907-8.  Per- 
formed 13th  January  1910. 


33 


OTHER  WRITINGS 

The  Aran  Islands.  Written  between  1899  and 

1907.  Published  April,  1907. 

Poems  and  Translations.  Written  between  1891 
and   1908;  the  translations  between   1905  and 

1908.  Published  June  5,  1909. 

The  Works  of  John  M.  Synge,  in  4  volumes,  Pub- 
lished in  1910,  contains  all  the  published  plays 
and  books  and  selections  from  his  papers.  Though 
he  disliked  writing  for  newspapers  he  wrote  some 
contributions  to  "  The  Gael,"  "  The  Shanachie," 
'*  The  Speaker,"  "  The  Manchester  Guardian  " 
and  "  L'Europeen  "  (in  Paris)  between  the  years 
1902  and  1908.  One  or  two  of  the  best  of  these  are 
reprinted  in  the  *'  Works."  The  others  may  be 
read  in  their  place  by  those  who  care.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  the  zeal  of  biographers  will  discover  a 
few  papers  by  him  in  other  periodicals. 


34 


A  NOTE 

Information  about  John  M.  Synge  may  be  found 
in  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats's  "  Collected  Works,"  Vol.  8, 
p.  173.  In  "  J.  M.  Synge  and  the  Ireland  of  His 
Tune,"  by  W.  B.  Yeats  and  Jack  B.  Yeats.  In  an 
article  by  Mr.  Jack  B.  Yeats  in  the  "  New  York 
Sun,"  July,  1909,  mainly  reprinted  in  the  above. 
In  "  The  Manchester  Guardian,"  March  25th 
1909,  and,  much  more  fully  than  elsewhere  in 
John  M.  S3mge,  by  M.  Maurice  Bourgeois,  the 
French  authority  on  Synge,  whose  book  is  the 
best  extant  record  of  the  man's  career.  A  good 
many  critical  and  controversial  books  and  articles 
of  varying  power  and  bitterness  have  appeared 
about  him.  A  short  Life  of  him  by  myself,  was 
published  in  a  supplementary  volume  of  the  Dic- 
tionary of  National  Biography  in  1912.  The  people 
who  knew  him  in  Ireland,  and  some  who  have 
followed  in  his  tracks  there  have  set  down  or  col- 
lected facts  about  him.  The  student  will  no  doubt 
meet  with  more  of  these  as  time  goes  by.  For 
those  which  have  already  appeared,  the  student 
should  refer  to  M.  Bourgeois's  very  carefully  com- 
piled appendices,  and  to  the  published  indices  of 
English  and  American  Periodical  Publications. 

P*Tmted  in  the  United  States  of  America 


35 


DA 


14  DAY  USE 

RETUKN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RiNEWAlS  ONlY-TEt.  NO.  6*2^« 
This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
^  on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

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LD2lA-40m-2,'69 
(J6057sl0)176— A-32 


^^neral  Library     . 
University  of  California 
Berkeley 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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